Facebook IPO to raise $5 bn, may overtake Google

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IANS/RIA Novosti | 03 Feb, 2012
Facebook has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) to raise at least USD 5 billion for the world's largest social network, according to documents posted on the US Securities and Exchange Commission website.

The deal could raise as much as USD 10 billion and value the social network at between USD 75 billion and USD 100 billion, valuing Facebook as the biggest US Internet offering ever, overtaking Google which raised USD 1.9 billion in 2004 with a USD 23 billion valuation.

"There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future," Facebook's owner and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, aged 27, said in a letter that accompanied the filing.

The filing was made online with the SEC in Washington late Wednesday. The timing of the IPO, the price of offering and the stock exchange for the company's IPO are yet to be specified.

Russian Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which owns the Mail.ru mailing system, Odnoklassniki.ru social network site and ICQ instant-messaging service, increased its stake in Facebook last year to 10 percent in a USD 500 million investment deal.

DST was established in 2005 by Russian metals magnate and billionaire Alisher Usmanov and businessmen Yury Milner and Grigory Finger.